Quincy Jones

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One of pop music's most versatile and influential figures, Quincy Jones has excelled as a musician, composer, arranger, producer and executive. He started in jazz, learning trumpet as a teen in Seattle and studying in Boston at what would become the Berklee College of Music. In New York City, he did arrangements for Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey and others in the early '50s, then played in the bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie before releasing the first of his more than 55 albums. In 1961, he became the first high-ranking African American label executive when Mercury Records made him a vice president.

Other Jones collaborators included Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Paul Simon, and he moved into film scoring with his work on “The Pawnbroker.” His most prominent projects involved Michael Jackson, for whom he produced “Off the Wall” and “Thriller,” as well as the USA for Africa session that yielded “We Are the World.” He was a different kind of producer for movies (“The Color Purple”) and television (“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”), and at the 1995 Academy Awards he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

One thought about Quincy Jones

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Quincy Jones does deserve this star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. My being the protege of the Late Lionel Hampton (on Vibes) makes this whole thing feel strange. Lionel was the Vibes Mentor that helped to give Quincy Jones his big break, Lionel had me to move in and teach me Vibes, and now I am swingin' and I am on stand-by for Mr. Quincy Jones. :]-Jason "Malletman" Taylor

”— Jason "Malletman" Taylor, November 10, 2012 at 7:52 p.m.

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